


Sentinel

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Edelgard and Hubert being pragmatic, Felix being a big goddamn hero, M/M, Sort Of, but big softies too, don't worry dimitri's not really dead, kingship is overrated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: *Spoilers for Crimson Flower Route - don’t read the summary if you don’t want the burden of knowledge!*-Felix doesn’t rejoin the battle. As Edelgard strides to the top of a nearby hill to call out her commands and her troops sweep over the muddy field, boots and hooves churning in the mire, Felix stands guard over the dead king, like the faithful sentinel he should have been when Dimitri was alive.Sylvain turns away, his chest aching and his eyes stinging, to call his battalion to heel. He swore an oath to the Emperor, and he will see it through.When he looks back, Felix is gone.-Byleth has recruited most of the Blue Lions, including Felix, to fight at Emperor Edelgard’s side. But Felix is not about to accept the hand fate has dealt them, not when Dimitri’s life is at stake.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 25
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

_ Sylvain leans heavily on his lance and watches as Edelgard’s axe, glinting red in the light from a dozen magefires, cuts Dimitri down. He’s too far away to hear the words they shared, but his heart feels heavy and hopeless as he watches his old, dear friend die before his eyes. Dimitri isn’t the first to fall to the advance of the Imperial war machine, but his death hits Sylvain like none of the others.  _

_ Even so, he doesn’t cry. He  can’t,  not in the middle of a battlefield where they are still sweeping up the rest of the Kingdom soldiers. He followed the professor and joined Edelgard’s forces of his own free will, and now he must walk the path he chose with eyes open. Just as Felix and Ingrid must. All of Dimitri’s dearest friends, now assembled against him.  _

_ Felix doesn’t rejoin the battle. As Edelgard strides to the top of a nearby hill to call out her commands and her troops sweep over the muddy field, boots and hooves churning in the mire, Felix stands guard over the dead king, like the faithful sentinel he should have been when Dimitri was alive.  _

_ Sylvain turns away, his chest aching and his eyes stinging, to call his battalion to heel. He swore an oath to the Emperor, and he will see it through.  _

_ When he looks back, Felix is gone.  _

-

Dimitri’s wakes to the aching of his body, the wounds he took in the final battle with Edelgard now merely dull points of pain. But the fact that he can feel anything at all is surprising. 

_ Can I really feel pain in the afterlife? Or am I still… _

He opens his eyes. Or rather, his eye. Only the left is willing to open; the right feels...odd. Not painful but different, in a way he doesn’t quite understand. The eyelid does not obey his command. 

Carefully, he lifts a hand and discovers a bandage covering his right eye. 

“Edelgard put that one out herself, didn’t she?” The low, smooth voice of the Emperor’s advisor comes from nearby, and Dimitri sits up quickly, wincing as it strains his healing wounds. Hubert is standing in his newly acquired blind spot, and Dimitri has to turn to see him. 

“I’m...am I alive?” Dimitri asks, staring down at his hands. The dirt and blood of battle has been washed from them, from his entire body, and he is dressed simply in loose, warm peasant’s clothing.

They’re in someone’s basement, a wide expanse of stone with Dimitri’s sickbed in the center. But in the corners he can see sacks of grain and barrels of apples, stocked away for winter. 

“Yes,” Hubert says contemptuously. “You are alive. I am rather curious to know why that is.” 

Dimitri gets up, walking towards Hubert slowly but with murderous purpose. It speaks to the skill of whoever healed him that his wounds barely slow his advance. “You must know that I will never stop fighting your evil ambitions.” 

He reaches out to grab Hubert by the neck, but is stopped in midair as though he’d slammed his hand against a stone wall. 

“Yes,” Hubert says mildly. “I know.” 

Dimitri presses his palm against the invisible wall, fear starting to set in. He has never understood magic or been any good at it, and now it seems that ignorance has rendered him a helpless prisoner. 

Rhea has told him much about the cruelties Edelgard visits upon her prisoners of war. Surely she has saved the worst for Dimitri. 

“What will you do with me, then?” Dimitri asks. 

Hubert’s mouth twitches in something like amusement. “Oh, the things I would like to do to you, my deposed king. I could make you dance like—”

“Vestra.” Felix hisses like a cornered cat, drawing his sword as he steps into the room. “Don’t you fucking dare.” 

Hot, animal fury runs through Dimitri’s veins at the sight of the nimble traitor who left his army to pledge his sword to Faerghus’ most hated enemy. He bares his teeth, hands pressed hard to the wall of the invisible cage.

“I must admit to some slight surprise,” Hubert says, taking a step back. His full attention is on Felix, the inky darkness of a sinister spell coalescing in his palm. “I had guessed the traitor would be Ingrid or Sylvain. You always spoke of him with such venom, after all.”

“Try it and I will open your throat,” Felix says, eyes flashing. They land on Dimitri for a breathless half-second, then return their focus to Hubert. “I can reach you before you kill me, and you know it.” 

“I will kill you both,” Dimitri growls, digging his nails into the barrier. “I will feed your corpses to the wolves. I will—”

“Quiet, boar. I’m saving your worthless life.” Felix’s sword gleams silver as he brandishes it, caught in a fighter’s crouch like a coiled spring just waiting to be let loose. “Ingrid and Sylvain have nothing to do with it. Everyone thinks he’s dead. And if he tries to come back and claim the throne, I’ll kill him myself. Okay?”

“You can’t possibly intend to outrun Her Majesty’s justice,” Hubert says. 

“I have given everything for Her Majesty,” Felix snaps. “I betrayed my home for her. I fought my friends and classmates. I stood by as she killed my father. When will it be enough for her?” 

“It’s more than enough.” A cool, commanding feminine voice fills the room, an imperious presence before Edelgard herself is even visible through the doorway. “I hope that you know how much of a difference your efforts have made, Felix.” 

“I don’t give a fuck about making a difference,” Felix says, running his hand through his hair in agitation. Dark strands fall free, framing his face. 

“Edelgard!” Dimtri surges forward, slamming against the barrier again with a noise that is more animal than human. “It’s time you pay for your crimes. The dead demand your blood.” 

“Watch yourself, boar!” Felix snaps, cutting Dimitri to the bone with a single glance. And somehow his tone breaks through the mindless agitation so that Dimitri can find some semblance of calm, some last vestige of humanity within himself. 

“The Professor would have me spare you, Dimitri,” Edelgard says.

To be spared the executioner’s axe...to be denied the peace of an honorable death...it is more cruel than anything Hubert could have dreamed up. 

“If you don’t kill me I will never stop hunting you, Edelgard,” Dimitri says. “The dead demand their due.” 

He can see Felix’s body go taut like a strung wire, in the way that it does when he’s very, very angry. 

“Don’t tempt me,” Felix says, approaching the magical barrier. “I’ve half a mind to kill you myself, even after all the trouble I went to to keep your sorry hide intact.” 

“Felix.” Edelgard’s regal voice cuts through the room, even though she’s making no effort to be particularly commanding. “You’ll come with us and explain yourself. Or I will have your co-conspirators hung.” 

“I did this on my own,” Felix protests. “But I suppose I have no choice.” He casts a sharp glance at Dimitri. “Be good. I’ll be back soon.” 

The three of them leave Dimitri alone in the pleasantly lit space, confined by magic he’s never seen before. He holds onto Felix’s final words like they’re the only thing keeping him from drowning as the dead crowd in all around him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hubert stands behind Edelgard, the Emperor’s sinister shadow. Felix is sitting in a chair facing them, in an inn room near the battlefield that they’ve converted into a kind of office. It’s three houses down from the one where a sympathetic farmer lent Felix use of his basement to hide the King of Faerghus while he healed from his wounds. 

It would be cozy were it not for the fact that Felix’s arms and legs are bound to the chair, and that the gleam of the dagger in Vestra’s hand matches the gleeful glint in his eye. 

“I saved him by myself,” Felix says. It wasn’t easy, either, stealing the body of the king everyone assumed was dead and carrying it off. The whole time, he’d cursed Dimitri’s bulk and wished for the boar’s brute strength. “Do you really think I would involve my friends in something like this?” 

Edelgard crosses her arms. “You carried him here?” 

“I took one of the horses.” 

“It must have taken a remarkable amount of healing to revive him so quickly,” Hubert says. “You expect me to believe that was your doing as well?” 

Felix holds their gaze, eyes narrowed. He’s sure they know the answer to that already, and can guess who helped him patch Dimitri up. But he’ll be damned if he gives her up to the wolves. Maybe he’ll hang, but he’d never take Mercedes with him. 

“Why did you save him, Felix?” Edelgard asks. She speaks to him like a friend, like a companion. Like someone he thought he could trust. “I thought you understood our purpose.” 

Of course Felix understands. It’s not like he’s an idiot. He always knew where this crusade of hers would end, with Dimitri dead and her atop his kingdom. She’ll be a better ruler than the boar king ever would, of course. That’s what matters. That was what Felix thought mattered most, until they approached Fhirdiad, and the inevitability of Dimitri’s death became very, very real. He thought he was on Edelgard’s side, that she had won his loyalty with her logic and reason. Until he saw Dimitri fall. 

It would have been less painful, less unendurable, to have been killed in Dimitri’s place. Felix doesn’t understand why he was overcome with such violent emotion, only that he could not bring himself to leave Dimitri’s side. And when he noticed that Dimitri still breathed, if only barely, he had wanted to fall to his knees and weep.

“No one will ever have to know he’s still alive,” Felix says. “You’ll get what you want. You don’t have to kill him.” 

He doesn’t know how it’s come to this, bargaining for the boar’s life when he should be pleading for his own. 

“My lady, this is clearly treason,” Hubert says, his cold glance sweeping once over Felix. “What a waste.” 

Over the course of the war, Felix and Hubert had become friends, of a sort. But this is business, and Hubert will approach it impartially regardless. Felix respects that, but it doesn’t help the precarious situation he’s in. 

“Hubert is right,” Edelgard says. “And you know what the penalty is for treason, don’t you?” 

Cold fear prickles down Felix’s spine, and he thinks of the boar, helpless in his magical cage, driven mad by guilt and grief. What will become of him if Felix is killed? 

“But you are a warrior,” Edelgard says. “I would not have you die helpless, without a weapon in your hand.”

“Then what?” Felix snaps, arching a brow. “If you’re going to chop off my head then do it now, before I die of boredom instead.” 

“We march on Fhirdiad in the morning,” Hubert says. “Rhea awaits us there.”

“I know,” Felix says. “I helped you draw up the plans. What of it?” 

“Then you recall the rooftop mission we discussed,” Edelgard says. 

“Of course I do.” 

Felix had been the one to identify the possibility of a single fighter making their way through a maze of rooftops to the side entrance of the palace Lady Rhea has made her own. It would take someone who was small, agile, and very familiar with Fhirdiad, but that person would be able to remotely disarm the traps set at every entrance. It was a brilliant strategic maneuver, except for one thing…

“It’s a suicide mission,” Hubert says. “Once in, there is no way out.” 

“Ah.” Felix looks up at him, realization dawning. “You want me to be my own executioner. Well. Why should I?” 

“You have my word that we will let Dimitri go free,” Edelgard promises. “If those traps are disabled, I’ll release him the moment the battle is won. As long as he doesn’t try to take the throne again, I’ll leave him in peace.” 

Felix clears his throat, feeling an odd stinging in his eyes. He doesn’t know if he can trust her, but he’s a dead man either way. He may as well take this chance. 

“Fine. I accept your bargain.” 

Edelgard nods, a shadow of sorrow crossing her face. “Then I’ll leave you to say your goodbyes.” 

*****

True to his word, Felix does return. Dimitri watches the traitor, his nostrils flaring with fury, his teeth bared. If there weren’t this damned barrier between them—

“For what it’s worth, I’m...sorry,” Felix says. He looks more sad than angry, his usual bitterness absent. “I should have remained at your side.” 

“The dead care not for your apologies,” Dimitri growls. “The dead only care for blood.” 

“Dimitri.” Felix’s tone is solemn, steady. “If I die.” He clears his throat. “If I die, I’m not coming back to haunt you. I swear it.” 

Dimitri frowns at Felix, puzzled. A momentary lucidity comes over him, just long enough for him to make a promise. “I would never let you die, Felix. Not you. Never you.” 

Felix’s jaw works, and he blinks rapidly. “I know,” he says, softly. “I know. Look, Dimitri. If I don’t see you again...” 

_ “Don’t lie. You’d fail him, just as you failed me.”  _ Glenn stands beside Felix, taller, broader, but with the same sharp, elegant features. 

“Glenn,” Dimitri moans, pressing his hands to the cage. “I know. I’m sorry.” 

Beside Glenn, Felix says something else, his eyes bright as sunset. But the dead are louder, full of fury and condemnation, and whatever Felix was trying to tell him is lost in the din. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not sure I like this chapter at all, or if it makes any sense. But I have procrastinated on posting it long enough...

They keep Dimitri in chains, in the back of one of the wagons, concealed from view and confined by the same kind of magical barrier, which seems to dampen sound as well as block movement. But he can tell they are in Fhirdiad, can see the familiar cobblestone streets and brick buildings through a small gap in the canvas. He knows the city is on fire, and has seen the emblems of the Church of Seiros on those who set the flames to burn. 

He watches as smoke fills the sky and the red of flames flickers in the distance, as the city he loves begins to burn, as all hell breaks loose around the convoy. As the battle reaches a heated pitch, a great crack comes from above him as the magical cage breaks apart, and smoke and sound rush in. Whatever mage put it into place has probably been distracted or killed.

Dimitri struggles to his feet, chains clanking, and pushes the canvas flap aside. No one notices him in the chaos—blood and flame and death everywhere he looks. 

And then he sees Edelgard. She’s standing atop a platform in the center of what was once a market square and has now become a brutal arena of death. Her commanding voice echoes across the battlefield, the volume enhanced by the sinister mage at her side. 

“Rhea has set this city aflame,” she calls to her warriors. “But we will visit justice upon her. And as we do, we will rescue and protect every citizen that we find. The men and women of Fhirdiad are now our brothers and sisters, and we will save them from the beast that has enslaved them.” 

She raises her axe, and all around her the weary soldiers, faces painted with blood and ash, raise their weapons in return with a deafening cry. 

“We will prevail,” she says. “We will be victorious!”

Her voice drowns out even the cries of the dead, who tear at Dimitri with cold fingers, demanding her blood. 

_ “You are the rightful ruler,”  _ they say, their ghastly voices like cold slivers under his skin.  _ “You must take what is yours. As long as you are Faerghus’s king, your life is not your own. Your life is ours.”  _

Dimitri stares at the flames around him, the entire city enveloped in a sinister red glow. 

_ I was wrong,  _ he realizes.  _ I have never been so wrong.  _

Rhea is no saint; she is a monster. And all those warnings she whispered in Dimitri’s ear, her poisonous words about Edelgard...they were lies. Now Edelgard is before him, in all her might and glory, a thousand times the sovereign that Dimitri would have been. 

He knows what he has to do. 

His chains throw him off balance, and he stumbles but stays upright, running for Edelgard as she steps off of the platform and into a back alley, obscured by smoke. 

“Edelgard,” he calls, and she turns swiftly, her red cloak billowing around her. In an instant, Hubert is by her side, a dark coalescence of magic in his hand. 

“Not one more step,” Hubert says. 

“Edelgard...I must tell you something,” Dimitri says. 

Edelgard hesitates, her keen violet eyes upon him. She nods. “Approach. With care.” 

Dimitri takes a deep breath. The dead shriek in his ears, nearly deafening. They reach for him with rotted fingers, calling out the familiar cadence of their tragedies.

But Dimitri pays them no heed. For the first time since he came home from Duscur, a boy bearing the weight of an unendurable trauma, he can see a way forward. 

He steps towards Edelgard, slowly, and Hubert tenses, the spell spiking and bubbling in his hands. 

“Careful, Blaidydd,” Hubert murmurs. 

“I forgive you,” he says, and it is like a great weight falls away from his shoulders, a toxic flame snuffed out. “I forgive you, Edelgard. And more than that…” 

Dimitri falls to his knees before the Emperor. He looks up at her, the serenity and poise that she possessed even when they were children. How he loves her, then and now. Only she could understand what he is about to do. 

_ Kill her, kill her, KILL HER! _

Behind him, the dead shriek and groan, but her light is brighter than their darkness. 

“Edelgard,” he says. “Your Majesty. As the crowned king of Faerghus, I do solemnly renounce the throne. Faerghus is yours. All I ask in return is your mercy, for all those who fought against you in the name of their king and country.” 

Edelgard’s gaze softens, her lips turning up in the slightest hint of a smile. “I shall show mercy in your name, Dima. I promise.” 

Hoarse shouting comes from nearby, and Hubert steps forward. “We must leave, my lady. Rhea awaits.” 

Edelgard nods. She helps Dimitri to his feet, but does not remove the length of chain looped around his arms. Dimitri understands, though. He wouldn’t trust himself either, after all that he has done, his baying for vengeance like the beast Felix always said he was. 

“The convoy will be safe enough,” Edelgard says, gently squeezing his hand. “Wait here. When the battle is over, you’ll be set free.” 

“Your Majesty,” Hubert says urgently. 

“Yes, of course.” Edelgard gives him one last lingering look, then she and Hubert are off, running into the hazy distance. 

Dimitri walks back to the convoy in a daze, marveling at the sudden quiet filling the air, even as soldiers around him clash and scream and moan. It was the duty of a king to do right by all those who fell in his service. But Dimitri is no longer a king, and as his obligations fell away, so did the iron grip his ghosts held over him. Their screams are now whispers, muted by the relief he feels now that he has forgiven his most hated enemy. 

Now he is only a man, free to pursue that which is most important to him. But where to begin? He hardly has to ask himself the question before the answer becomes clear. 

_ Felix.  _

He approaches the soldier guarding the convoy, who blinks up at him in confusion. Clearly not someone from Faerghus, he seems not to recognize the former king. 

“Where is Felix?” Dimitri asks. His voice is rough from the smoke filling the air. 

“What’s with all the chains?” the guard asks, frowning with soot on his brow. “How’d—”

“Where is Felix?” Dimitri demands, drawing himself up to his full height and using his most intimidating voice. 

It seems to work, as the convoy guard takes a step back, watching him warily. “Felix...Felix...The one with all the swords?”

Dimitri nods impatiently. 

“Oh, yeah,” The soldier shifts his weight. “They sent him on ahead. Suicide mission if you ask me. He’s probably in the palace by now. He can get in, but there’s no getting out. Sorry, was he a friend of yours?” 

Dimitri stares down the main boulevard, which leads directly to the palace. He thinks of Felix there, overwhelmed by hostile forces. The flash of his sword and the brilliant red of his blood, one more person Dimitri failed to save. One more—

The groan and tear of metal jolts Dimitri out of his dark thoughts as the chains that had bound his hands clatter to the ground. 

“Seiros, you’re strong,” the soldier murmurs, eyes wide with awe. 

Dimitri pays him no mind. “I’m going to need a horse and a lance,” he says. 


	4. Chapter 4

Felix’s arms tremble as he raises his sword. His hair is wet with sweat, sticking to his neck, and he places his feet carefully as he waits for his opponents to attack. The marble floor of the throne room is slick with blood, the corpses of the last six soldiers he killed surrounding him like some kind of macabre decor. 

_ At least it’s better than the gilded floral designs the Regent had put in here.  _

He laughs softly at the thought, angling his sword so he can see the reflection of the man creeping up behind him, while keeping the rest of his attention focused on the two approaching from the front. Three to one, but they’re hesitant. Unlike their predecessors, who are now dead on the floor. 

“You’re in good spirits for a dead man,” the woman approaching to his left says. She wears the armor of a knight of Seiros, but he doesn’t recognize her. 

“I’m just trying to decide which of you to kill first,” Felix says, baring his teeth in a feral grin. “Should I give you a moment to draw straws?” 

The man behind Felix flinches, but the woman doesn’t seem intimidated, only cautious. 

“At this rate, I’m likely to perish of old age,” Felix says, tightening his grip on his sword and slipping into a battle stance. If he’s going to die, as he almost certainly will, he’s going to go out fighting. Dimitri is safe, and the rest of the Blue Lions will look out for him from now on. All that’s left to Felix is this final task: a warrior’s death. 

“Very well,” the woman says, hefting her axe. “We’ll give you what you want.” 

The three fighters prove to be formidable but not insurmountable opponents. Which is to say that by the end of it, Felix has added three more bodies to his throne room decor, but also a great quantity of his own blood. 

Now, he’s sitting on the throne because it’s the only place to sit in the entire ridiculously ornate chamber, a makeshift tourniquet on his thigh and his sword in his hand. He can’t put weight on the injured leg, he is out of spells, and his fingers are beginning to lose their grip on his sword. He hefts it in his trembling hand and considers throwing it at the next soldier stupid enough to walk through that door. 

But in the end, he decides it would be best to die with his weapon in hand. So when the doors are thrown open with enough force to wrench one of them from its heavy hinges, he just waits for the warrior to approach. 

“Felix!” 

It’s Dimitri, running across the floor like a vision, his boots leaving red footprints on the marble as he approaches the throne—his throne. 

“You’ll have to forgive me, Your Majesty,” Felix says, slurring the words. Dimitri is oddly blurry, the world around him flickering and fading. “You didn’t have any other chairs…” 

Dimitri says his name again, urgently. It’s a nice sound. Felix has always liked that sound. If he’s going to die, he’s glad it will be with that sound in his ears. 

“Put me down, you big dumb brute,” he says, but Dimitri pays him no mind, lifting him easily. He sways in Dimitri’s grasp like a ragdoll, the world fading quickly to black. 

“He’ll be okay.” Mercedes’ voice, lilting from somewhere nearby. 

Closer still, a rough intake of air that is almost a sob of relief. A voice Felix would recognize anywhere. He struggles to open his eyes, but the lids are so heavy. Unconsciousness takes him before he can accomplish it. 

“I recognized your sovereignty, but if you tear me from his side—” Dimitri’s voice, low and desperate, but without the burr of madness. 

“I have no intention of doing so.” Emperor Edelgard, serene as always. 

Felix opens his eyes just enough to see the blue blur of Dimitri’s cloak, standing like a sentinel between himself and the red smear further back that must be Edelgard. 

“I came to make you an offer,” Edelgard continues. “I find myself in need of a soldier…” 

Felix slips into darkness to the sound of her voice. 

When next he opens his eyes, sunshine is falling through a tall narrow window onto the white linens of his bed. The room is familiar—the one he stayed at whenever he and his father would visit the castle in Fhirdiad. It takes him back to a boyhood that was not so many years ago, but feels achingly distant. 

There is a man slumped against his bed, half asleep with his blonde hair spilling onto the sheets like liquid gold. Felix reaches a shaky hand forward to brush against the crownless head. This time when he closes his eyes, he sleeps peacefully until morning comes again. 


	5. Chapter 5

Edelgard has made Garreg Mach her base for the time being, rather than ruling from Enbarr. It makes sense—it’s more centrally located, right at Fodlan’s heart, and easier to defend from the occasional uprising. She’s gone more often than not, traveling the continent to listen to the needs of her people and tend to them, but her most elite army is centered here, and that includes many of the students who once attended the Officers Academy in this very place. 

Dimitri never thought he’d find himself a part of Edelgard’s elite strike force. Yet here they are. In truth, he bears her surprisingly little ill will for all that has transpired between them. He is relieved to be absolved of the burden of command, after spending his life dreading it, hating the way it separated him from others, set him above them. Unlike Edelgard, he has never believed himself to be worthy of such power. 

While he was in the infirmary, healing from a nearly lethal wound in his thigh, Felix missed Dimitri’s joyous, tearful reunions with Sylvain and Ingrid, with Ashe and Mercedes and Annette. It feels good, right, to be together again. None of them speak of what happened to Dedue. It’s still an open wound, but it doesn’t fester like the other griefs Dimitri has carried. It hurts, but the pain doesn’t poison him. 

Felix has recovered now, but Dimitri sees little of him outside the training ground, where Felix demands they spar but refuses to talk. Dimitri is still unsure what happened—how he was saved and why—and no one will tell him. When he tries to remember, the reality of what happened is obscured by the fog of his madness. Felix was there, that much he is certain of. But to act as executioner or savior? Dimitri doesn’t know. 

When he can’t take the uncertainty any longer, he seeks out the one person he knows will not flinch from sharing an unpleasant truth. 

Hubert is in what was once Hanneman’s office, as the old professor is now in Enbarr, running the Institute of Crestological Studies alongside Linhardt. In addition to Hanneman’s collection of dark spellbooks, several messenger birds fill a nearby cage, cooing softly, and vials of foul looking poisons line the shelves. 

The spymaster looks up from the envelope he is in the process of drawing a complicated arcane design on and raises an eyebrow at Dimitri.

Dimitri steps into the shadowy office. “You’ve really made a space for yourself here.” 

The quill scratches as Hubert puts the final stroke on his design. It flares sinister purple for a moment, then he sets it aside. “Do you need something, Dimitri?” 

“I have a question,” Dimitri says, standing before the desk, as Hubert appears to only have the one chair. 

“Very well.” 

“How did I survive the battle with Edelgard? Why was I freed?” 

Hubert’s keen gaze moves over his face. Dimitri has the uncanny feeling that Hubert can see through him, all the way down to his bones. “This has been eating at you, hasn’t it?” 

He nods. There is no reason to lie. 

“There is nothing I can tell you,” Hubert says. 

Dimtri had anticipated this response. Hubert is not likely to give away information for free, after all. But perhaps a trade will loosen his tongue. . 

“Do you know, when we were students here, I struggled with this idea that I would someday become king?” Dimitri asks. 

“It was only obvious,” Hubert drawls. 

“Well. Back then I asked Edelgard—sorry, Her Majesty—when did she start feeling like she was fit to rule. Do you want to know what she said?” 

Hubert nods expectantly. Of course Edelgard’s name would catch his attention. 

“She said that when she came back, the sole heir to her bloodline, she barely considered her future. But every moment of every day, you looked at her like she was the Emperor already. It was your faith in her that let her become the sovereign she is.” 

Hubert’s eyes widen, his mouth opening for a short second. 

Dimitri shrugs, enjoying the momentary lapse in Hubert’s composure. “That’s what she told me.” 

“I...see,” Hubert says, finally. “Very well. I believe you’ve earned this.” He rummages in one of the desk drawers for a moment, then hands Dimitri a letter sealed with the crest of Fraldarius. “Felix asked that I give this to you after his death. Fair warning: if he knows you have it now, he’ll probably attempt to kill us both.”

“Thank you,” Dimitri says. 

He retreats to the privacy of his own quarters, waiting for the silence of late night, before he breaks the seal and reads the letter. 

~~_ Boar _ ~~ __ ~~_ Your Highness _ ~~ _ Dimitri,  _

~~_ I am going to die, and it is all your fault. _ ~~

_ It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I was always going to die for you.  _

_ Don’t think it has anything to do with fate. It doesn’t matter that I was born to be your closest retainer. It. Doesn’t. Matter. I  _ _ chose  _ _ to walk this path and I have no regrets. _

_ Don’t add me to your line up of ghosts, do you understand me? _ _ Or I will come back just to beat some sense into your thick head.  _

_ I missed you every day that we were apart.  _

_ Always,  _

_ Felix  _

Dimitri reads the letter several times, careful not to tear it in his trembling hands. Then he returns to Hubert’s office and demands to hear the entire story. Eventually, Hubert relents, and tells him. How Felix rescued him, dragging his barely breathing body from the fields of death. How Hubert found him, and Felix offered his own life to save Dimitri’s. 

After that, Dimitri reads the letter again, in the privacy of his own quarters, and breaks into very un-kingly tears. 


	6. Chapter 6

_ “Listen to me, boar. They’re dead. Gone. Rotting in the dirt. So stop this, okay? You’re leading us all to ruin.”  _

_ Felix stood in the throne room after all the other advisors had left, seething with frustrated anger. He was the only one who could see how far their king had fallen, how little he cared for the living soldiers he sent into battle in his quest for bloody vengeance against Edelgard. The rest simply followed where the king led, unable to face the hard truth.  _

_ “You’re right,” Dimitri said, but it was clear he was talking to one of his ghosts. “He is a distraction. He will lead me astray.”  _

_ “Bullshit,” Felix said, advancing on Dimitri. “I’m the only one who will tell you the truth.”  _

_ “This kingdom does not need cowards who shy away from a righteous cause,” Dimitri said, drawing himself up to his full height and turning his gaze—crystal blue eyes glossed over by madness—on Felix.  _

_ “This kingdom does not need a beast for a king,” Felix growled. “Yet here we are.”  _

_ “You wish to undermine me,” Dimitri snarled. “The dead have told me as much. I thought you would be the last to betray me, Felix. Yet here you are.”  _

_ Felix clenched his fists, trembling with anger. “You truly are mad.”  _

_ “Leave,” Dimitri said, his voice low but undeniably regal, the voice of a king even now. “Leave my sight. And do not return.”  _

_ Felix felt something within himself break cleanly in two, and for a moment he thought he was falling, the foundation beneath him, on which he’d stood his entire life, crumbling away to nothing.  _

_ “Fine,” he said, his voice rough and raw. “I’ll leave you to your ghosts and your bloodlust. Don’t expect me to mourn you when you fall to Edelgard’s axe.”  _

_ After all, the Dimitri he knew, the Dimitri he loved, was already dead.  _

_ Even so, it felt like he had wrenched out his own heart and left it in the throne room, and it took every bit of strength he possessed to walk away.  _

“This is no good,” Felix says, lowering his blunted sword with a frown. “You’re distracted. What’s going on?” 

They’ve been sparring for the better part of an hour, but Dimitri’s heart isn’t in it today. Felix can tell by the way Dimitri moves, the way his eye tracks Felix’s face rather than the movements of his hands and feet.

“It’s nothing,” Dimitri says, still gripping his training lance. “Let’s go again.” 

Usually that’s Felix’s line, because he wants to be the best he possibly can, and also because he wants to make sure Dimitri can handle any threat that might arise. Felix might not always be there to protect him—it’s a thought that keeps Felix awake in the late night, adrenaline spiking through him after dreams where Dimitri falls in battle and Felix is just moments too late to save him. 

“It’s not nothing.” Felix narrows his eyes. “Are you hearing the dead again?” 

Dimitri is quiet for a moment. “I always hear them, Felix.”

Felix blinks at him, stunned by Dimitri’s words and his matter-of-fact tone. “Always?”

“Every day, more or less.” Dimitri shrugs. “But they’re quieter now. I know they’re not real, and that makes them easier to ignore.” 

“Ah.” Felix isn’t sure what to say to that. He’s not good at comfort, or attending to those who are ill, and what is this if not illness of a different sort? 

He feels a pang of regret for how little care he showed Dimitri when it first became clear Dimitri was having conversations with people who weren’t really there. Does Dimitri regret what happened between them as keenly as Felix does?

“Why did you save me?” Dimitri asks, his words falling quickly like he couldn’t hold them back another moment. 

“We worked together to save you,” Felix says evasively, his eyes darting away from Dimitri’s face. “I barely did anything.” 

Dimitri looks puzzled. “That isn’t true. I talked to the others, Felix. I know what happened, what you did.” 

Felix steps back, feeling wildly exposed. He never intended for Dimitri to know the truth. “Don’t read too much into it. I did my duty, nothing more.” 

“I wish you would trust me.” Dimitri sets his blunted lance aside and steps forward, until he is close enough to reach out and touch. 

Felix raises the battered training sword in his hand, instinctively slipping into a defensive posture. He doesn’t mean to—it’s a reflex honed by years of battle. Their conversation left him feeling achingly vulnerable, open to attack. But when he sees the chagrin on Dimitri’s face, he deeply regrets it.

“You still fear me, even now.” Dimitri hangs his head, his golden hair falling in his face. “I suppose I deserve that.” 

“I have never feared you, boar,” Felix says sharply. “It’s not that. It’s only that I…” 

He pauses, struggling for words. He is rarely able to express his emotions even in the best of circumstances, and this is far from ideal. He expresses himself with his body, with his sword and with his strength. 

He will probably never tell Sylvain how their friendship is one of the most important things in his life. But he will dash madly across a battlefield to put his sword through the heart of an archer with Sylvain in her sights. 

Nor has he ever expressed his gratitude to Mercedes for her stalwart support and innate goodness. But when she forages for herbs outside the walls of Garreg Mach, she never runs into a single beast or bandit, because Felix is always there ahead of her, clearing the way. 

And so he knows he might never be able to tell Dimitri how it seemed that the sun went down when Felix rode away from Fhirdiad and left his king to ruin, and didn’t come up again until they were reunited. He might never be able to put into words the way Dimitri’s smile is a sunrise, how his laugh, after all this time and suffering, makes something in Felix’s chest ache and swell. 

Now Dimitri is watching him, waiting for something, for words that Felix knows he can’t speak—not now, maybe not ever. 

Instead, Felix chooses action. He closes the distance between them, grabs a handful of Dimitri’s hair, and tugs his head down for a kiss. 

Dimitri makes a soft, shocked noise against his mouth, but does not pull away. Instead, his big hand slips into Felix’s hair, messing up his bun as he gently cups the back of Felix’s head, holding him close. 

It feels like a long time and no time at all before they pull apart. 

“Felix,” Dimitri murmurs, breathing his name like it’s something holy. “Please. This is not something I can take lightly.”

“As though I could,” Felix counters. “I left you once and you almost got yourself killed, idiot. It’s not happening again.” 

Dimitri smiles, bright enough to light the room. “I have always lo—”

Felix cuts him off with a kiss before he can say something really embarrassing. And later, in Dimitri’s bed in their old Garreg Mach dorms, he does his best to express his own feelings, the answering warmth in his heart. 

That night, and every night after, when Dimitri thinks Felix is asleep, he whispers, “I love you.” 

Eventually, Felix learns to whisper it back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sappy ending! But I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading <3


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